Stardock&rsquo;s Response to PC Gamer UK and RPS

There was an article posted earlier today on PC Gamer UK outlining some of the frustrations that the reviewer had with the pre-day 0 version of the game as well as a problem he was having with tactical battles.

In the article, he quoted an inflammatory forum posting I made on a site I participate in called Quarter to Three. This is a site I’ve been a participant in for many years and many of the people I discuss things on there are personal friends of mine.

During one such exchange with my friend Ben Sones, I angrily responded with a statement “Ben, please stay away from our games in the future. I consider it ready for release and if others disagree, don’t buy our games.”

This comment was totally out of line and I apologize for it. It was made in the heat of a ~2000 comment long thread and is not how I honestly feel. Ben’s a friend of mine and his comment that the game felt like a “beta” to him upset me and I responded inappropriately. I post a lot on many forums and unfortunately, sometimes the things I say are inappropriate or inflammatory.

As the CEO of Stardock, I want to be clear that my comments on the Quarter to Three forums do not reflect my team at large. They were words spoken out of frustration and sleep deprivation and I am truly sorry. We stand behind what we feel is a great product, one that we will continue to support for a number of years.

With regards to a post on Rock Paper Shot Gun, which picked up the PC Gamer UK story, they erroneously point to a 2+ year old URL to a Stardock news item that is no longer active (we switched news systems a year or so ago). Their article falsely implies that we have stepped away from our commitment to the Gamer’s Bill of Rights.

The site, www.gamersbillofrights.org was set up and is run by Stardock. We stand by it. It is, with some irony, our commitment to no DRM on our DVD release that ultimately caused the rough pre-release experience of Elemental. Several retailers broke the street date and we felt we needed to release our gold version to our customers who had pre-ordered from us as well as to our beta community that helped make the game the outstanding strategy game that it is.

However, it also became clear that the pre-day 0 version of the game was problematic as outlined in the PC Gamer UK article. The official day 0 version of the game, what is available right now, should address most, if not all the issues that have been described. That said, as is our long-standing policy, we will continue to release updates and improvements Elemental just as we do for the other titles we develop.

I anticipate us putting out regular updates for Elemental for months or years to come based on player feedback, suggestions, and yes, bug reports.

I hope this offers some explanation as to the events that have come up. I sincerely apologize and feel terrible for the effect my forum posting on Qt3 may have had not just on our fans but also my team that has worked incredibly hard over the past 3 years to produce what we hope, is a game that you will enjoy for years to come.

OK, I am usually a quiet one, reading the forums and keeping my judgements to myself but this I cannot pass up...

Like many of you I bought Elemental before the beta even started, just the promise of a Stardock Fantasy game was enough for me to slap my cash. Now here I am, playing the released game and I am enjoying it, but not just the game as it is now, but also as the game I KNOW it will become. I have no doubt that Stardock will keep working at this game until they are satisfied they have put in all the features, fixed all the bugs and added all the things we haven't even dreamed of yet before they set it aside. And why? because they are some of the lucky few people who actually have a passion to get it done, not for the money (which I am sure helps) but because they are playing it too. Hell, Brad is having a month off just so he can mods his own game AND to learn stuff he can pass on to the community.

If this game had been released by any other company I would have stopped playing it due to the frustration of what the game could have been... Instead I am playing it with the happy thoughts of what I know the game will become.

If I come across as a fanboi so be it but I am happy playing my new game.

One thing Brad, can you sort out some of the text overlapping the container it is in? No a showstopper but I know you will sort it if asked

The official day 0 version of the game, what is available right now, should address most, if not all the issues that have been described. That said, as is our long-standing policy, we will continue to release updates and improvements Elemental just as we do for the other titles we develop. I anticipate us putting out regular updates for Elemental for months or years to come based on player feedback, suggestions, and yes, bug reports. I hope this offers some explanation as to the events that have come up. I sincerely apologize and feel terrible for the effect my forum posting on Qt3 may have had not just on our fans but also my team that has worked incredibly hard over the past 3 years to produce what we hope, is a game that you will enjoy for years to come.

Frog, no one will/should fault your ready engagement of consumers in the forums/world at large.

However,the game as released is, and remains to be, a rather broken piece of software. I would have preferred to wait an additional few months in order for you to get things together "in house" versus being used as a larger "Beta Test" to debug the software. Yes PC gaming is buggy. But this is above and beyond buggy.

So if you want to truly "man-up" about it then say, yes indeed it is a bugged release, we are working on fixing it, versus "everything is fine".

Kudos for the apology though I don't think it's really needed. It -was- a pre-release version and it was known that you guys would be doing a launch day patch. Picking up on that was as much their silliness as anything else.

Though for the general nature of it all, it is rather unfortunate that developers can step away from games but games do not step away from developers. This sort of situation where a developer can't say anything for fear that it will be taken without any real research and fact finding on the matter is rather silly.

I still support you guys and the games you put out. Many games have bumpy launches and I won't hold it against such a fine game developer. You guys worked your butts off on this, and I know it will be of the same caliber as your other titles. Plan on picking it up soon!

on other part we almost all know that the majority of the peoples on this forum are Stardock supporters

The only thing about this is the peoples looking for articles to know if they will buy a product.

For me 1st, well i don't know the numbers of sales, but i hope they are good, would be a proof that peoples have faith in SD, in their products, in the work they do over time to improve them to make the best of the best.

Second, i think that over reading the articles, the best way to judge a game is by the demo, and i am sure that the peoples interested in this kind of games can just be happy to see it and know the content will be increased over the time.(look at dominion 3 always updated, and very deep).

To be honnest,no, the game isn't really perfect at start,liers those who say that, but very promising and we know SD is a team of hard workers trying to make the best possible for us to enjoy this game.That's enough for me to support the team, that's all i need.I paid the price just because i wouldn't find this kind of game anywhere and i know, thanks to the team and the community that it will be better and better, that's all want.

So like many others said before, i am SURE this game will rock, thanks to SD team to even try this this game.

Kiss from France (sorry for the bad grammar blah blah, we suck in France )

Apart from any specific issues I may have with the game itself, I want to thank Frogboy for posting such a sincere and fair response. I think that the controversy itself was baked from a pretty vile mixture of truth, emotion, and some unfair (and patently incorrect) characterization. While I may not agree with every decision made regarding the game nor with every forum post originating from Mr. Wardell, I do think his swift and level-headed response in this situation is highly admirable, and this alone would be reason enough to make me glad I'm supporting Elemental via my purchase (even if I weren't truly enjoying the game as it is, warts and all - which I most certainly am).

I really hate these game journalists, most of them do more damage than good. Another good example is too human which was actually a very good game once you got used to it. It failed and we probably wont see the sequels all due to the horrible coverage it got by sites like this. Word of mouth travels quickly

I just want to say that I understood that Brad was frustrated, and that I didn't take that comment personally, or feel like I needed an apology (but thanks for offering one!). I don't think that either one of us expected that off-the-cuff conversation to turn into the topic for news items on other websites. I guess that posting under your real name can be a double-edged sword--people tend to take you more seriously, but then again, they also tend to take you more seriously.

I feel sorry for everyone. The reviewers, Brad, the Stardock team, the community and myself. There are no winners in what's going on with Elemental. The best of luck to you and the team Brad. I hope you make things right and make this game realize the potential it has. Next time we'll all be wiser.

I just want to say that I understood that Brad was frustrated, and that I didn't take that comment personally, or feel like I needed an apology (but thanks for offering one!). I don't think that either one of us expected that off-the-cuff conversation to turn into the topic for news items on other websites. I guess that posting under your real name can be a double-edged sword--people tend to take you more seriously, but then again, they also tend to take you more seriously.

Hopefully this puts this incident to rest, and everyone can move on.

Hm, now that I think about it, it is rather strange that a news item would use a comment between friends in such a fashion. From the way it was mentioned in the review, I was left with the impression that this comment was made in some kind of formal interview. I don't think the author had a right to use this comment. It's no wonder politicians and the like feel as though they need to be "politically correct" every time they open their mouths to speak.

Posts like this (from the dev) makes me feel good about the decison to by Elemental. Unlikie some other developer from City of Heroes (who shall remain nameless---Jack Emmert---oops!) who (IMHO) continually decived the playerbase, this post shows that some gaming companies still have integrity!

Updates I like, reason I'm actually sticking with you in this because the only companies I trust are the ones that commit to their products. Paradox, Bioware (Yes they do patch for years which some of you might not notice =P), Blizzard (Sure they have the worst community representatives but damn do they patch!) and due to galciv you are pretty much addable to this list.

About your ranting professionally I think you fucked up, never ever say "Do not buy my product". Personally I think you can say that, because really I wouldn't either want to sell a game to someone who doesn't like the genre or something. And yes there are those people who stop playing a game due to a single bug that 99% wouldn't notice

With my rant over I have this hilarious situation in Elemental now, there is a shrills army roaming about with a combat rating of 73108 at 300 turns into the game. Only 2 units as well actually (4432 attack and 910 def in total).

I love Paradox!

Paradox, Bioware(although the choice to make Old Republic an MMO instead of a RPG like KOTOR has angered me), Stardock, and Bethesda. Those are my favorite developers.

No game launches in perfect order. Patches are not only a necissity of pc gaming, but also one of it's largest boons. As it stands today, I am loving Elemental and likely will continue to play and salivate over it for years to come. Multiple patches have already been released since launch day, and knowing Stardock, that's likely to continue well into the future. On a side note, I could care less what you said to a friend of yours (or anyone for that matter) on a forum somewhere out there in the ether that is the internet. I'm sure each and every one of us as hit the 'post' button and then thought better of it later on. The fact of the matter is; Elemental is an already great game that only stands to get better as it ages, and Stardock is an outstanding company in terms of customer service and business ethics, as well as game design and implementation. Keep up the good work guys. You'll probably be getting my gaming dollar for as long as you're around!

Frog, no one will/should fault your ready engagement of consumers in the forums/world at large.

However,the game as released is, and remains to be, a rather broken piece of software. I would have preferred to wait an additional few months in order for you to get things together "in house" versus being used as a larger "Beta Test" to debug the software. Yes PC gaming is buggy. But this is above and beyond buggy.

So if you want to truly "man-up" about it then say, yes indeed it is a bugged release, we are working on fixing it, versus "everything is fine".

How is it a broken piece of software docbates7? It runs fine for me and with the day 0 patch it hasn't crashed either and I've been playing it for hours. I could say the same thing about Oblivion to Bethseda, since four years later and the game still crashes often! Why is this so? I would say mostly because of my computer, but since I changed computers and it still crashes, and the sheer number of people with problems that was never addressed I think I could say that that game was broken. But I still hear that some people never had any problems with it at all. I started it three times and the first two I plain gave up because of the every 20 minutes crashing thing, yet the third time it's on hold but somewhat playable since I learned how to deal with the game and tweaked my computer to run it, yet it will crash once every few hours.

Elemental was just released yesterday and has in the past four days recieved FOUR PATCHES! Which is something I've not ever seen any company do.

Just keep in mind that because you are having problems, that doesn't mean that everyone else is either. Oddly enough Fallout 3 gave me no trouble, and it had the same game engine as Oblivion . . . so go figure!

I'm just sorry that all this chaos was caused when you were just trying to do the RIGHT thing.

The street date being broken was obviously not your fault, and clearly you were only trying to do right by your customers by making this early release available (something other companies rarely do when their street dates are broken).

It's a sad day when good intentions come back to bite the person in the ass...

Game is slightly disappointing. With any other developer, I would have already demanded my money back.

But, Stardock has yet to produce a game that, ultimately, was not worthy of the money. So long as you guys stand by your games, I'll stand by you. As long as updates come out to fix/upgrade the game - I have every confidence that they will - then I'm willing to be patient for a bit.

And, fear not, we players will make it a point to update you on every facet of the game that we feel needs work. And we'll do it until you hate us for it : D

Now then, I believe you should take that rest that you were so keen on getting a few days ago. Don't worry, we'll all be here when you get back.

People demanding that a PC game is completely perfected at release, where have they been hiding the past 20 years? Every serious gamer knows that it takes several patches for most PC games to reach their destined quality. As long as the developer completes that post-release part of the process, everything is all right. Part of the deal, so to speak. Why should Elemental be critizised for following the industry norm?

I also admire both your honesty and determination, Brad. Don't listen too much to those that don't appreciate your work of art.

And regardless of how great Elemental is, or if it turns out to be a failure, supporthing the effort of making a game like this is worth the purchase. Actually just the beta process has been more fun than most games I've played! And I sense it is only the beginning...